This invention concerns an aid for use in the management of clinical and other emergencies in which the life of a person is endangered, for example, in medical and dental practices. The invention provides a means for use as an aid to memory and as a convenient supply of essential medical instruments and drugs for use in the management of clinical and other emergencies in which a person's life is placed in danger. The invention furthermore provides a method of furnishing an aid to memory and a supply of medical instruments and drugs for use in such circumstances.
As is well-known, there are a number of medical conditions which can arise in a person, which can be classified as emergencies in the sense that they involve an immediate or sometimes delayed, danger to the life of that person. Merely as examples, can be cited such conditions as heart attacks of a severe degree, cardiac arrest or drug-induced asthma or angioneurotic oedema. A common factor in many such emergencies is that the supply of oxygenated blood to the brain is critically diminished or interrupted, and, in these circumstances and other emergencies, death of the person is imminent, and immediate treatment of the appropriate kind must be administered. This type of situation frequently demands the utmost calmness and efficacy in the person administering the treatment and a ready supply of the medical instruments and drugs necessary. Now it is well known that such emergencies can occur in medical and dental circumstances, for example, a person undergoing routine treatment in a dental surgery may suffer a severe medicinally induced asthmatic attack, or a similarly induced angioneurotic oedema. Cardiac arrest in the dental chair has been frequently reported in the literature. It is an unfortunate but almost universal fact that such situations have a powerful capacity to induce extreme nervousness in a person who has to deal with such an emergency, and of course such nervousness severely militates against those very qualities which are necessary for the most effective treatment of the emergency. Not only this factor, but the necessary medical instruments and drugs must be immediately to hand. Doctors, dentists, nursing sisters and other para-medical persons are not immune to these difficulties when confronted with the management of such emergencies, and even the most competent practitioner will frequently have to resist a tendency to become very nervous, or even panic-stricken, or they may not have emergency drugs and equipment immediately to hand.
Objects of providing the means in accordance with this invention thus include the following:
a. to save the patient's life, PA1 b. to keep the practitioner calm enough to be capable enough to do so, PA1 c. to train medical or dental personnel in emergency procedures, and PA1 d. where necessary, to enable a layman to assist the practitioner after a brief scanning of the instructions, (or even to perform at least some procedures himself).